Customer Reviews

Lori

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Here's a reprint of one of Robert Bloch's last novels. It is very readable, and moves rapidly, with a high level of suspense maintained throughout. It also contains quite a bit of forced humor, most of which doesn't work. The plot made almost no sense to me, and the motivations of many of the key characters are absolutely incomprehensible. Just to give two examples: (1) Two opposing "psychic" forces act, one to prevent, one to support fortune teller Nadia Hope in her frantic effort to deliver a college yearbook to the main character, Lori. It makes for a suspenseful few pages, but makes no sense at all in terms of what we learn later about what's going on. (2) Lori's psychiatrist's behavior toward her makes almost no sense at any point in the novel in terms of what he apparently hopes to accomplish with her, as revealed toward the novel's end. Lori herself is quite annoying and it is a bit difficult to care too much what her ultimate fate might be. Indeed, Bloch leaves her ultimate fate completely up in the air... we never hear from her again after a certain crucial moment.

There's no hint in this trade paperback edition, riddled with misprints, that the novel has been published before... 1988, hardback, 1990 paperback.

I think that a final rewrite by Bloch might have helped quite a bit, but it's an enjoyable read, and will keep almost any reader on the edge of his or her seat to the very last page. Bloch's career as a fictioneer goes all the way back to the heroic era of H. P. Lovecraft, and Bloch changed effectively with the times, while maintaining his mission to keep readers scared!